


It Happened Like This

by anticyclone



Category: Pokemon GO
Genre: First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8871328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: They definitely met on a training assignment. That much they agree on. Who saved who, well, that's up for debate.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kouredios](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kouredios/gifts).



"It's an easily verifiable fact: Blanche, Spark, and Candela all grew up in separate towns. There is simply no way that the three of them would have gone to school together, which greatly limits the possibility that their rivalry developed in childhood." Netanya resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Every day, they walked through an atrium with portraits of all the center's senior staff, team leaders included. A small biography accompanied the portraits, and each indicated a different hometown for the leaders. She didn't understand how this argument was still going.

"Netanya, I know you grew up in a city, but have you seriously never heard of summer camp?" Liam laughed in a way that was probably not meant to be mean, but Netanya still frowned at him. He threw an arm around her shoulders, careless that the three of them were now posing a particular problem to any of the other trainers who actually wanted to walk through the center's atrium. "I met  _ so many  _ of the people in our class at the Future Pokémon Trainers' Summer Getaway. Why do you think I hate Brent so much? He slept in the bunk bed above mine three years running!"

At their side, Cecily smiled. "You don't need to keep justifying why you hate Brent. It's pretty self-explanatory after the first five minutes you're in a room with him."

"I'm surprised you would say that about a teammate." Netanya lifted Liam's arm off her shoulders so she could step out of the way of a newbie class of trainers struggling to find the right hallway before their next session started.

"You keep thinking I'm on Team Nice. Actually, I'm on Team Follow-Your-Instinct, especially in cases of people who think Growlithes  _ aren't cute. _ "

"I think what he actually said was that not every Growlithe would rank at the top of the scale for strength and appearance, or the scale would lose all meaning."

"Oh my actual God, can we not have the Growlithe argument again?" Liam pressed the back of one hand to his forehead and gave a heavy sigh, letting himself sag against Cecily's side. Instead of pushing him away, as Netanya had gotten used to, she just giggled. Liam fluttered his eyes at them. "I just can't take it."

"Fine then. We could always go back to the argument where the two of you insist there is more than friendly rivalry between the team leaders, and I for some reason continue to entertain you instead of going to my lab and locking the door behind me." Netanya crossed her arms over her chest. The others must have finally acknowledged her exhaustion at the subject, because they inched back and stood up very straight.

The next voice to speak, however, came from directly behind her. "Do you spend a lot of your free time gossiping about us, trainers?"

She froze for a moment, struggling to latch onto a phrase that would make her seem less strange to Candela, but her friends' faces were no help. Thankfully her lungs continued to function unaided, and so did her feet. They turned her around slowly enough to give herself a moment to restart - despite the fact that  _ all three  _ team leaders were standing there, exactly across from each of their trainers, which meant that Blanche was directly in front of her and looking deeply skeptical.

Netanya chose the logical thing to do: throw Liam under the bus. He had, after all, started it. "Leader Candela," she said, inclining her head. "I apologize. Liam has difficulty sleeping, so when he leaves the TV tuned to DramaTown all night, it affects his brain."

Liam sputtered, but Candela ducked her chin and laughed. "Sounds like someone I know," she said. Her eyes did not move left or right, and neither Blanche nor Spark gave any indication whether she was talking about them.

"I, uh…"

"You know what I always find helps me when I can't sleep?" Spark asked, absently tugging on one of his gloves to make it lie flat.

Everyone waited, but he didn't answer the question. Blanche pinched the bridge of her nose and asked, "Spark, what helps you when you can't sleep?"

"Oh, the usual. A hundred push-ups, jumping-jacks, crunches, lunges…"

Candela grinned broadly and grabbed Liam by the collar of his red uniform. "Sounds great. How about we try it together, trainer?"

The two of them disappeared down the hall toward the weight room. Silently, Netanya gave thanks that at dinner tonight she would probably only have Cecily trying to 'just taste' her food. That was, until she realized Blanche was staring at her.

"You mentioned locking yourself in your lab. This seems like a logical time for an update on your research." Blanche nodded at Cecily before turning around and walking toward the Mystic wing of labs. 

As she moved to follow, Netanya only half-smiled in return to Cecily's apologetic wave. She had never regretted her choice to join Mystic, but she did think (just a tiny bit) that if she had to be alone with a team leader after such an awkward conversation, Spark would probably be the easiest.

***

Cecily dropped to the cool earth beneath one of the sprawling oaks outside of the training center and prayed for a quick death. It felt like her lungs were molten lava and her bones were toxic fumes. It felt like every muscle in her body, and some she wasn't entirely sure she'd noticed before, had crumbled to ash. Her  _ skin  _ hurt. For a horrifying moment she realized she couldn't feel her feet, but when she propped herself up on her elbows and flexed her toes, her shoes moved.

Spark jogged to a slow halt and stretched both arms above his head. "Okay, maybe we didn't actually need to run the route three times. I just got so caught up! It's such a beautiful day!"

"Sir, with all due respect, are you fucking with me?"

He laughed so hard he dropped down to the dirt beside her. As a concession to the obstacle course they'd just run, he peeled off both his gloves and shrugged out of his jacket. "Okay, okay, maybe a little. I couldn't tell Candela and Blanche I'd gone easy on you!"

"I guess it wasn't that terrible." Cecily took a few deep breaths. Her heart rate was dropping, and she felt slightly less like she'd been wrung out to dry.

Spark pushed himself back to his feet. He began to do a few slow, gentle stretches. Cecily watched him for a moment before standing up to join him. They finished the cool-down routine in silence. The day  _ was  _ beautiful. She could hear some kind of flying Pokémon chirping in the distance.

She didn't gather up the courage to ask about it until they were on their way to the locker rooms. "Liam - I mean, all of us - we're just… a little curious. How  _ did  _ you all meet?"

"People aren't asking what launched us on our lifelong rivalries?"

"Boring people are," Cecily conceded. She smiled when Spark snorted. "But really, Netanya just thinks you met when you started training, and Brent thinks-"

Spark came to a stop outside the leaders' private locker room. He started to push the door open, then stopped and looked back on her. "I'm kind of surprised more people don't know."

It was hard not to fidget. "Know what?"

"I saved their lives once."

***

Liam couldn't do another sit up. He also couldn't get himself down from the hanging sit-up bar. Instead, he hung there with what strength he had left and reflected that it was weird to watch someone jump rope upside down.

"Come on," Candela said, when she noticed he'd stopped moving. She crossed the rope in front of herself on her next jump. (Liam could definitely not do that. Yet.) "Are you quitting on me already?"

"No, no, I was just studying your flawless technique." Liam said. From her expression he guessed that if her hands had been free, she would have flipped him off. He didn't really want to deserve that, so he dug down deep and found he had another dozen hanging sit-ups left in him.

By the time he got his feet back on the floor his team leader was across the room examining dumbbells. He joined her, picking a lightweight set and sitting down on the end of a bench

Candela kept staring at the weights. She put a hand on her hip, hummed, and looked at him from the corner of her eye. "So are you planning on a grand rivalry, too?"

"Huh?" Liam blinked. "Oh, with Cecily and Netanya? No, they're some of my best friends here. Now, maybe somebody else, like-"

"It's not all it's cracked up to be. Having a nemesis is exhausting. Having two, well, how would you ever get anything done? Especially since Spark actually enjoys cleaning." She finally picked up a couple of weights and turned to face her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

Liam was trying to figure out a totally normal way to ask whether that meant the leaders actually did share a house like some people said they did. But he couldn't, so instead he asked, "It's not like people think you all hate each other. They're just… curious."

"Curious about whether we spend all our time plotting against each other?" She shook her head. "Or if we're all actually cousins? Wasn't that the plot twist everybody was complaining about on that one show?"

"I wouldn't know," Liam said, even though he was one of the official wiki editors for DramaTown's hit series 'Turning Tides.' "Uh, just normal stuff, I guess. Like how you met, or…"

"That one's easy." Candela winked. "I saved both their lives."

***

"Your preparation is solid, but I believe you'll want to expand your sample size. The latest publication on the effect of daylight on the evolution of nocturnal Pokémon had trouble replicating their results with sample sizes under twenty."

Netanya considered pressing her forehead to the glass enclosure where her research subjects were sleeping, but decided that would look unprofessional. She hadn't felt this stressed about presenting research since she'd first proposed her project idea to Blanche and the Mystic research advisory board. Now she would need to go back into the mountains to see how many more Zubats she could collect.

"Thank you for the advice," she said. She was going to have to borrow Cecily's sleeping bag again. And bring about a thousand pokeballs.

Blanche watched one of the Zubats yawn and tightly wrap its wings across its face before turning around and stepping into the hall. Netanya made sure to turn off the dim lights they'd raised when they came into the viewing chamber.

"I suppose it would only be fair to answer your question." Blanche had linked her hands together behind her back.

Netanya frowned. "You already answered my question about enhancing the cave habitat."

"No, I mean what you were discussing earlier, with the others."

"T-that's not necessary." She could just about die. "It's very silly, everyone does it sometimes, it's really a very bad habit." And now she was babbling.

"Everyone speculates about our personal lives? I didn't think we were that mysterious." She shook her head when Netanya tried to protest. "It's very boring. We all have different approaches to our work - hence the different team choices - but in the end, we find that we work well together. You'll end up with friends on different teams by the time you graduate, as well."

"Oh, I do - Liam and Cecily are… less annoying than they might seem." Netanya hesitated. But they would probably kill her if she didn't seize the moment, so… "Sometimes, I mean - Sometimes people wonder how the three of you met. That's all. Like I said, very silly."

Blanche raised an eyebrow. "Well, they would have died if I hadn't been there."

***

Candela rubbed temple as she approached the leaders' lounge, which had a nice corner spot in the back of the center with two full walls of windows. It wasn't very close to the kitchens, but they had a mini-fridge, and sometimes you had to make trade-offs. The other two had gotten there before her. She could tell, because they'd left the door cracked, and she could hear them arguing before she even had her hand on the doorknob.

"Will you two  _ please  _ keep it down? The water in the shower was barely hot, I got shampoo in my eyes, and I learned that apparently  _ some  _ trainees think one of us used to be on Team Rocket." She rolled her eyes and kicked the door shut behind her.

Spark sputtered. He was sprawled out on the long overstuffed couch, his feet up on the coffee table. That was probably what had set them to arguing in the first place. "They think one of us was what?"

Blanche looked up. She was in the corner of the room, pouring water for three cups of tea. She was using the red cups, which meant it was going to be something cinnamon. Blanche kept the lounge's tea cabinet fully stocked. "Which one of us, precisely, is supposed to have switched sides?"

"Oh, Liam didn't know." Candela gestured at all of them while she crossed the room and fell into her usual armchair.  _ She  _ did not put her feet up on the coffee table. "It's one of the other things everyone gossips about. Do we hate each other? Does one of us have a tragic past? Is one of us a double agent?" She wiggled her eyebrows, which made Spark laugh. Blanche just sniffed and turned back to the tea.

"I didn't know we were such celebrities. Should I start humming the Team Rocket theme when I'm walking the halls?" Spark asked.

Blanche set a cup down in front of him. "I for one will not be responsible if Professor Willow has to answer to parents suddenly alarmed about why their children are working for a former member of Team Rocket."

"It's not like they would be able to prove anything, though. It's a catchy song!" Spark shrugged. "I could always say I'd heard it on a news report earlier. Anyway, none of us actually ever worked for Team Rocket."

"Facts being the main factor in parent complaints," Candela said.

Blanche sat on the end of the couch with Spark, crossing one leg over the other. "Your trainee may need to think twice about his drama consumption. Mine was very reasonable, although not yet as ambitious with her research as necessary." She sipped her tea. "She didn't mention any conspiracy theories. She only asked how the three of us met."

"Did… did you actually tell her?" Spark asked.

"Of course I did."

"Oh."

"I apologize if you would prefer I hadn't, but our entire year knows the story. Besides, I think it can be useful to share learning experiences with your team. It can be helpful to know that even we had our moments of doubt when we were younger." Blanche glanced up from her cup and blinked at the two of them. "What?"

Spark put a fist to his mouth. It didn't help him not laugh. "If you call being lost in a cave network for four hours a 'moment of doubt,' then yeah, I guess I see how that could be useful." He flashed wide eyes at Candela. "Like, did you know how important it is to print out a map before you go somewhere with no Pokédex reception?"

Candela had been biting her lip, but she gave up and slid down in her seat, laughing. "St-stop looking at us like that! You were totally lost! You were so totally lost, Blanche."

"If you recall, we quickly discovered we were very near to an exit. I am sure that if you two had not come along, I would have located it in short order."

"Uh, you'd also be super dead, so…"

Blanche put her tea down and glared at Spark. "You literally fell through the cave roof." When Candela laugh, Blanche doubled the glare. "And you woke up the Onix that nearly collapsed the cave on all of us. Without me, both of you would be…" She paused and made air quotes, which Candela couldn't stop herself from laughing at. "'Super dead.'"

"Wait wait wait." Spark crossed his arms over his chest. "Is that what you told your trainee? Because I don't know how you remember it, but I was the one who saved your lives."

"That's rich," Candela said, at the same time that Blanche repeated, "You literally fell through the cave roof."

Spark looked back and forth between them. His face was creased. He didn't often look skeptical when either of them were talking, but Candela had known him for years at this point. This was definitely Spark's doubtful face. "So Blanche remembers saving both of our lives. Which, okay, I see how you could think that, but remember which one of us disoriented the Onix when it was about to crush you two."

"Yes, by landing on its head when you  _ fell through the cave roof. _ "

"Hey, that was a strategic leap!" Spark pointed at Candela. "Anyway, she's the one that woke it up and caused the cave-in that broke the roof in the first place."

Candela stuck her tongue out at him. "I only woke it up because when Blanche heard me walking through the cave, she called out, so I ran over. I thought you were hurt or something!"

Blanche now had her tea cupped with both hands and was staring resolutely into its depths. "It was the logical thing to do."

"Ah _ -ha! _ "

"I never claimed I wasn't lost, Spark."

"Well, both of you are forgetting that I'm the one who pulled you out of the cave when it was all over." They glowered at her in unison, but Candela just winked at them. "Hey, you can have all the Pokémon knowledge in the world and still not be able to climb out of a hole in the ground. And look at you now! Both of you have gotten so strong. You could even pass for Team Valor."

They were still arguing when Professor Willow found them later.

***

"You're … arguing about how you first met? Do you not all remember?"

"Don't get us started again, Professor."

"I'm sure Professor Willow will be able to put a rest to the argument."

"But I definitely wasn't there."

"Well, we all generally agree on the basic course of events…"

"We just need you to vote on which of us is right about the ending."

"I still don't see how I can help."

"Allow me to go first, Professor."

***

It was back during one of our early years at the Center. Our class of trainees - all three teams - had been assigned to explore a certain area. At the time I was particularly interested in how food sources affected evolution, and one of the center breeders had mentioned an unusual flower growing in the caves which water Pokémon were partial to. I wanted to see whether feeding it to an Eevee might influence its evolution.

I set out into the caves. Following the scent and sound of water, it did not take long to locate and harvest flower specimens. However, getting out proved to be … a challenge.

_ "To people who didn't bring a map." _

As I was saying.

The lower parts of the cave were filled with crossing tunnels. I took a wrong turn and didn't realize it until much later. At that point I had no clear way to tell where I was. I decided to try to retrace my steps to the water source, since logically, all the water in the cave would flow to the small lake that was its defining feature.

Partway through my search I heard some noise-

_ "That was me!" _

...Yes, it was Candela. I called out assuming that even if my fellow student was lost as well, two minds would make quick work of escape. I hadn't realized that between the cavern I found myself in, and the tunnel where Candela was, an Onix lay sleeping.

***

When I heard Blanche yelling, I turned around and ran over. I was just trying to check off as many of the explore items on our assignment as possible. Also,  _ I  _ had brought a map. Anyway. There were all these stalagmites through the cave, and I darted around a bunch to get to where she was.

It was dark, so when I hopped down from the tunnel where I'd been walking, I stepped right onto this little pile of rocks. I kind of stumbled and when I got up, Blanche told me not to move.

_ "But you did anyway." _

Hey, you didn't say why not to move! Anyway, I walked forward, and then I heard this breathing over my shoulder. I'd stepped right onto an Onix's tail and woke it up.

It was huge! I still think it was one of the bigger Onix we've ever seen, but these two disagree with me - shush!. It saw us and dove straight at us. Blanche just stood there, but I grabbed her and pulled us out of the way. The Onix must have been really asleep, because it started thrashing, and breaking off all the stalag-whatevers. We had to scramble back. That meant the Onix was between us and the tunnel we needed to get out of there.

All I had on me was my Eevee and Vulpix, which were not going to be useful. I didn't want them to get hurt, so I didn't pull them out. 

Anyway, then the roof caved in.

***

What are you looking at me like that for?

Ugh, fine.

I was walking toward the forest above the cave. All I wanted to do was see how the Pidgey's season was going. It was the time of year when the hatchlings were first starting to fly. I could hear them pretty close, so I pulled out my camera. I guess I was having a hard time finding it at the bottom of my bag, or something, because I didn't notice any rumbling underneath me.

The ground collapsed before I knew what was going on. I remember really clearly watching it start to fall apart and thinking, huh, it's like in a cartoon. I definitely didn't hang in the air for a minute after it fell in, though. I tried to grab onto something but just dropped my camera instead. Luckily for me, it hit the Onix's eye!

Not that I knew it. I fell onto a big rock and just sort of sat there for a second, dazed, until I spotted these two gaping at me like a couple of Magikarp.

_ "Hey!" _

...Yeah. Okay, so I get to my feet and hop down, right? I mean from my perspective I just experienced a cave-in and neither of them were even asking if I was okay. I kind of dusted myself off and casually asked if either of them knew the way out of the cave. Actually, it was really funny.

_ "It wasn't funny." _

Candela pointed over my shoulder and that's when I noticed the Onix's eyes cracking open. Fun fact, this Onix must have been super old, because it blended so well into the cave that for a second all I saw were these hovering eyes. Then it shook its head from side to side and raised itself up. Its head almost reached the hole it'd knocked in the cave.

***

The tea had long gotten cold. Professor Willow had his chin cupped in his hand and was staring off into the middle distance. They waited for him to react to this turn in the story, but he just made an unsatisfied noise and gestured widely around the room. "It sounds to me like this is just a story of the three of you getting into far more trouble than  _ I  _ ever heard about during your trainee days."

"That was just the exposition!"

"We all agree on what lead up to the incident, Professor Willow."

"Yeah, we  _ disagree _ on who was responsible for getting us out of it."

Blanche took a breath and held her hand up. It was her turn to speak, and she did have the best view of things when they had been in the cave. "The thrashing Onix was clearly panicked after being woken up unexpectedly. I suspect that perhaps it had been in a deep sleep, although we weren't able to gather enough data to confirm that suspicion. Nothing we said could calm it down. Spark huddled behind us-"

"I did not  _ huddle. _ "

"You totally huddled."

"A _ hem. _ " Blanche shot them both a sideways look. "Without direct access to an escape route, our only remaining option was to try to subdue the Onix. Luckily, I had brought not just my Eevee but also my Shellder, who had successfully mastered Bubble Beam a few weeks prior."

"I had my Squirtle," Spark said. "He'd learned Water Pulse a while back."

"A sound strategy," Professor Willow commented. "So, ah… your argument is about which of you was the better in the ensuing battle?"

Candela put her elbows on her knees. Half of her mouth was turned up in a smile. "You would both still be in that cave if I hadn't been able to climb out and drop a rope down to you."

"That's an unfair assessment of the situation."

"I have to agree with Candela."

"Ha!"

"If I were grading you on this excursion - which I'm sure I did, and too leniently - you would both have received high marks for your quick thinking and use of water Pokémon against the Onix." Professor Willow leaned back against the couch and sighed. "But all three of you should have been with another student instead of going off on your own! Especially into a cave system! Ultimately, it seems like the only reason I didn't find out about this when it happened was because Candela got you out on her own instead of needing to rope me in."

Candela laughed. "Good one, Professor."

"Good - Oh, yes. 'Roped in,' haha."

Spark sank down in his seat. "I feel like being surprised by the ground disappearing under my feet makes me innocent."

"Hmm. Yes, I probably would have cut you some slack for that, Spark."

***

They were closing up for the night when Spark suddenly came up behind Candela and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. She was startled, but settled one of her hands over his. Blanche stopped in the doorway to look back at them with one raised eyebrow.

"You never actually would have left us in the cave. Even if you didn't have a rope," Spark said. He couldn't see Candela's face, but he could see Blanche's, and she at least was smiling.

Candela squeezed his hand but shook her head. "I guess we'll never know, will we?"

"Ha! Next time someone asks, I'm telling them _ you  _ used to work for Team Rocket."


End file.
